Man, I haven't done anything on here in forEVER
Thanks to a very special (and cute! ;-) ) friend of mine, I now have both of my livejournals back - I thought they'd died from neglect. I'll only be using this one though, the user name is easier ot remember. (Thanks Cindy!)
Last night I wrote something. I don't know what it is, but I'm going to post it. Don't expect too much. ;-)
I have a nightly ritual. I remove the clothes that I have worn during the day, hoping to make a good impression, and don ones that would impress no one. The lamp at my desk is turned on, casting a softer glow than the overhead light, which is used to illuminate tasks with a more external purpose. Tonight, in the shaded, less business-like light, I exchange Josh Groban's vocal talent with Charlotte Church's, for a different kind of relaxation.
My room is small, but the subdued lamplight wanes even a few feet distant, and so I lay, on my stomach, with my head at the foot of the bed, nearer to the lamp. And there I write.
I often wonder if my journal writing will do anyone but myself any good; whether my posterity will look back on my wire-bound epic of adolescense (and whether they will laugh at my spelling). Will they someday wonder who I am as they flip through the pages, yellowed with age? Will they ask their grandparents, my grandchildren, what I was like? If they do, they will not hear of my youth, but of my old age... Everyone has a different story to tell, about themselves or about others. One of, if not the, most unique things about us as individuals is our perspective.
And it is of interest that our perspective is put into another's grasp through our writing. It is, however, an enormous responsibility that we place on ourselves when we write. If we write the truth, it must be the truth. If we write our perspective, it must be just and full, for it may be all anyone encounters of who we are, what we know and see. It must truly be your own, your own silent voice to echo inside someone's head and be heard through the ages.
I have only just begun to realize these responsibilities, the sheer magnitude of what one may do with written words. It is not something to be taken lightly.
And so it is with some awe that I continue with the set structure of my evening and open my scriptures, following a petition to God. He is the only one who can make sense of His creations, numberless and each flawless, though each in a unique way. He created us exactly as he chose to, but with a hopeful, self-constrained hand...he lets us choose what we create of ourselves. The authors of the scriptures never wrote a word there without the guidance of someone they did not (for many of them) see, someone who lead them through the mazes of thought and impression to inspire their hands to write what they did. I am impressed, in a deep part of my soul.
It would seem that the things which we would most wish to be author of are, in fat, written by someone else, and the only credit we may take is that we knew little, and learned, if nothing else, that we knew even less than we thought we did.
Perhaps writing has the potential to be so enduring a thing, with such consequences, that we cannot do it safely alone. Like rolling a boulder downhill, we cannot do it alone to any purpose but destruction. Guidance and aid must be given to bring it to a place good enough to be called home.
I toldja I had no idea what it was. I started out writing it thinking it maybe could be a fragment of short story, but instead it ended up being something from me with a narrative voice weighed down with a barrel of bricks.
I wish I knew what my narrative voice was. I look at certain other amateur writers and I can read it and say yes, it is theirs, I can tell. But it seems like all the stuff I write and really like is so heavy-sounding (and almost pompous, really) that I know it's not me. I'm fun and friendly and silly... *sigh* Or am I? I also know what it's like to be serious, and bitter, and disappointed, and unloved. It's like I'd like to think I was shallow because it would be so much simpler...but I'm really not. But if I'm not, what am I? ....Arg, this is turning into such a classic teenager I-don't-know-who-I-am speech. How lame.
I wonder how I would define 'shallow', if I tried. There's the whole opposition-in-all-things-to-know-what-they-are thing, right? Well the suffering makes you deeper, I would think. But if you've never suffered, then you're never really happy - it's all on the surface. I think that's shallow.
*sigh* But I know for a fact that I've gone through a lot. I guess it's just that as I've gotten older I've forgotten more and more, and put more and more of it into the background, into my subconscious. Because I can honestly say that life is pretty darn great for me. I love my family, in spite of it all...I get good grades...great friends...I really have nothing to complain about. And even if I did (and a few things major things HAVE happened that were not-so-great), I don't let it bother me. I don't like being sad, I've done my share of it, thank you very much.
Maybe that's why I'm so bad at being comforting, because I can't really relate, having put the seriously crappy stuff I've gone through behind me, and ceased to gain from it. Don't civilizations in the scriptures get attacked at about this stage? They forget that they had to be made humble and start being morons?
The thing is though, I have a testimony. I know that God and Jesus and the Holy Ghost exist as separate, loving people, and that Joseph Smith saw his and my Heavenly Father and our Savior. I know that the Priesthood was restored to the earth, and I know that the leaders and teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is of God. I'm not forgetting those basic truths like scripture people who are begging for destruction. So what am I doing wrong to feel like I'm lost inside my own head?
Boy, this is a heck of a post to jump start my livejournal with, huh? :-Z
I'm not really as frustrated and angsty as I sound, honest. Life goes on, being decently enjoyable, whether I understand myself or not. And that's something to appreciate. (There goes the optimistic nothing-bothers-me thing again. Oh well, I'm tired of being down anyway.)
MOVING on. Today was really very funny. Even if Mom disagrees, heh. She and I went to get chain link panels from Home Depot to build dog kennels, and when we finally got all of them, it started raining. We weren't worried about it though, because they said they'd help us load it onto the rental truck. But no one came, and we loaded 15 of these really irritating things onto the bed of the truck all by ourselves in the poring rain. And I was in a white t-shirt - I knew there was a reason I put a tank top on underneath it! I kept having urges to start giggling and dance around in the rain, but Mom wanted to hurry up and get out of it, so like a dutiful daughter I refrained. But if I had been with Cindy, you know I'd be running around the parking lot! ^_^
But I'm home now, and Mom and Joseph went to return the truck and bring back a pizza for dinner. And then Sister Eyre, our new Young Women's president is coming over to meet Deborah and I (flattering!). I had to shower though...I was such a mess after being out in the rain for so long. It was really funny on the radio though, they said it was 85 degrees outside, and we had the heater on. Yes, it was raining and we were sopping wet, but it was still really funny. I think I was finding just about everything funny by then. Pent-up giddiness, you know.